Official Unity plan pricing and packaging updates

It's easy to find yourself in ridiculous scenario for some mobile games. For example:
1. Have < 1m revenue and tens of millions of installs
2. As your game getting closer to 1m revenue it's actually more profitable to remove the monetization to prevent it reaching 1m because if you reach it...
3. You have to instantly pay millions to Unity as now you meet those 2 criteria

That's ridiculous monetization strategy unheard of in any other service or platform. Monetization should always start from 0 and progress smoothly... going from 0 straight to millions is insanely stupid and impossible to manage or prepare for.

 

VR industry is having a hard time already as it is, now with Unity destroying developers trust I think VR as a whole could be affected pretty badly.
For a long time Unity had most VR tutorials / best maintained SDK from Oculus/Meta, now with Unity deciding to basically destroy itself it will likely take years to rebuild that using a different engine... I guess Unreal has the second best maintained SDKs, maybe Meta will focus on those now. Or Meta might need to build its own engine at this point, but it's probably too late

 

Reminder: there will be no tracking or any precision determining who pays what and why. They will use a proprietary (probably half-baked AI-based) random number generator which will accuse you to be over the revenue and install limit this month and here is your bill, if you don't like it, raise your voice to the support who don't answer your inquiry for six months anyway and the bill still due in the mean time. Or else.

Oh or you can buy 12 months of F***ing Unity Pro subscription.

 

Stop right there. You see what you did?

Switching to pro will not erase the debt you have with unity because the debt was made previosouly when you were under the personal license.

 

Does this means unity can no longer be used for offline games? You will be sending install info from the runtime to your servers. If I want my game to send ZERO Data then unity is not an option?

 

Do you really trust them that they will stay with this in the comming years? Nothing is hindering them to decide after 24.1.1 to say oh and now web games count too because we want and can say so.

 

And it doesn't invalidate calculations above in any way.

 

That means that I need to require my customers to buy their own license and ask them to assign me a seat.

 

This so much, I'm actually already thinking of implementing a remote microtransaction kill-switch in my new game.

 

Should I ask the mods to ban you from replying like you did to me? @eizenhorn

 

So in that case the dev will have to work out a deal with their client and let them know that hey uh, there's this indefinite fee that you have to track and pay that is based on magic no one understands and it'll they'll have to charge it for the shelflife of the product. I'm sure that conversation will go over just fine.

 

Oh no! I don't trust them one bit. I was just pointing out the current state of things (subject to change TM).

 

Yes unless you use Unity Industry. Then no fees.

 

I understand your point about the accuracy of calculations.
But how do you account for the "install count" being a variable, which accuracy is highly questionable due to it's method of acquisition in the first place?

 

Your calculations are based on the fee not resetting each month. Or I misunderstood something ?

 

Incorrect. Yes, no fees for you. But your customers will need to AGREE to be subject to those fees. I think you will have a hard time finding customers that will agree to that in the first place.

 

Hello how do I set the game to beta and don’t get paid for runtime fee

 

It appears you will need to pay because your account build the executable ‍♂️

 

That is the twitter/X post. This is their website: https://unity.com/runtime-fee

It contradicts with the post about streaming distribution, so it is safe to assume that applies to WebGL as well:

 

if you all have personal license AND you made >200K in the last 12 months you will need to pay per new install
if you all have pro/enterprise AND you made > 1M in the last 12 months you will pay those rates per new install
If you did not make more which ever of those is relevant, eg, say it is actually properly 100% free, then you pay absolutely nothing

 

Nope. Even scarier. Unity will be completely inventing those numbers out of thin air and send you a bill for them.

 

we don't know.

 

You will need to inform them of the possibility of X amount in fees, and they will have to agree to pay them, on top of your production budget. This might inflate the price, and they won't agree to be your customer and choose a person / team who uses Unreal instead, use of which doesn't incurr these extra costs. Maybe.

 

@Unity, can we please already end this bullshit and just add % based rev share above the threshold like UE does (and while we're at it also change EULA so whomever doesn't upgrade past that is not affected by further changes, like UE does...).

It's super simple, you will get your cash, tons of it, people will get a peace of mind.

Do it, it's really so super simple...

 

Companies are greedy F***s, doesn't matter where they are coming from.

 

Not anymore moved to California and most of the founders all retired. At least the ones in high places.

 

Unreal has no subscription fees by the way. Lets not forget that. Or you are ok to pay % from revenue and upfront 2000 per head per year for the editor?

 

Suppose your game has a long tail and continues to pull in $17k per month which nets you $12k per month after Steam or wherever takes their cut. Gross revenues is above $200k and you're still on the hook for every single install to a new device, regardless of whether that install nets revenue. 5% of $17k is about $850 or roughly 4,200 installs. Not a lot.

Sure it's an edge case and there are ways around it (you can stay subbed to Unity Pro FOREVER!) but you're feeding this to developers - a huge part of our job is to account for all edge cases! The point is this should never happen. It should not be possible to find yourself in this situation ever!

If you want to convince me this is a better deal than a rev-share, here's an easy solution:

Cap the fees at 5% of the monthly revenue!

Keep your bizarre fee structure and let us get the better deal once the chips are counted. Solved. It took me 4 minutes and half a brain cell. You're welcome, Unity.

 

Probably they will hire "financial analysis" teams going dev by dev and researching online their potential sales, getting tax statements from them, and coming up with a magic number to charge them.

 

"Hey Unity someone is selling stolen asset in Asset Store"
"-----No Answer"

1 month later
"Hey Unity someone is selling stolen asset in Asset Store"
"-----No Answer"

"Hey Unity that install stats is wrong, my game did not earn that much"
"----No Answer"

"Hey Unity that install stats is wrong, my game did not earn that much"
"Our Iron source spy says you are a liar"

 

depending on the percent they want it might be alright, say if it's 2-3% past 1mln this would be fine, if it's 5% and it's at that point more expensive than UE then obv makes no sense since UE is a superior engine, that is not a secret.

 

Doubt it they will ask chatGDP. If they are wrong you can show them your taxes and maybe get it fixed at least on the revenue side. Install count likely not.

 

The cap will probably be a must to plug this solution if they keep the fee in place. Regardless, I think for many the trust gap cannot be plugged anymore. Myself, will not consider Unity for future projects. This is just the last one of many Unity f ups & drama for the past years.

 

I am okay with sharing revenue, it keeps engine alive.

But install pricing just contains too much of what IF scenarios.

 

That’s because there’s no runtime installer. Yet.

I like the “only 90% of our customers are affected” bit. It’s a sweet way of saying “we’re only going to screw one in ten of you’

Legit question:
If a user gets a new iPhone, iPad each year, do backup restores and transfers of all of their apps count as installs?

 

You wouldn't have any debt. You change plan before it's invoiced and go on. And even if you invoiced you just speak with support and solve this.

 

Yes

 

The problem with taxes is, they can't prove your income comes from a specific game. Also, why in hell do I need to show my taxes to anyone. This is insanity.

I would be concerned if I for a moment believed Unity capable of pulling this off.

 

At this point, I don't even trust that this is a given. I do agree that it is a must to have any chance at redemption here.

 

Taxes wont show revenue per game, though, will it?

 

To all of the people shouting to introduce % rev share (or cap in the form of) - I am begging you, to stop and think a bit.

It is a no-go.

First of all - we should not negotiate with the terrorists, as they are acting alike.

Secondly - such a cap being introduced means that we somehow accept their new policy, their absurd way of communication, their lack of experience, knowledge, and just plain sanity. We can not accept such behavior.

Third - it is plain wrong to have both monthly subscription (with the removal of Plus it is even worse) and rev share. Choose one and let us do our job.

 

big if true,

https://twitter.com/runevision/status/1702259250985124115

 

Steam gives you a 1099K showing what you made you can show that and monthly.

 

To people trying to make it a math problem to defend the pay-per-install model:

• This is nothing about math. Broken is broken. You can replace the variables in the model with any numbers. It is still broken. As long as you can not guarantee "fee < revenue" and avoid the cliff around the threshold point, it is worse than revenue share. period.

 

You'll be safe until 1mil installs and 1mil $ earned

 

Tomorrow is the Unity "APAC INDUSTRY SUMMIT 2023" ( https://www.apac-industry-summit.com/?lang=en ) in Seoul.

I want see the hotel with people asking for questions about new prices.

 

Idea 1: Maintain subscriptions and introduce a revenue share above the threshold, although the share should be less than 5%.

Idea 2: Implement a 5% revenue share above the threshold, but subtract the cost of paid subscriptions from the revenue share owed.

 

Also want to point out how many posts on this thread are from folks who joined (the forums) 7 - 15 years ago! This isn't just angering fair-weather users. This is pissing off long-standing loyal customers.

 

I am not ok to pay % fee if I pay a subscription fee. Let's say we need Pro due to dissasociating ourselves with Unity by removing their logo, that might be anywhere between 2000 - 20000 for a small team for a year. Let's say I pay this upfront for a year. I bear all the risk of this investment. Therefore, Unity should not be entitled to participate on the success of my investment. If they also bear risk by waiving this subscription fee, then there can be some revenue share.

 

And this comes out of your mouth and not from QA ?
And according to unity's practice, will we receive feedback after 6 months or never?